Employment. What is it? Where does it come from? What ontological characteristics does it presuppose? According to the Brunch Club’s demographic penetration analytics, you’re just as clueless about it as we are. So, we’ve commissioned known professional Travis Cannon to share with us some insights on the pleasurable business of making work work for you. This is part three of six.

III. What Have You Done That’s So Special?

Show them that you're the one. give them proof that it hasn't all been a neurochemical con job.

A resume (or curriculum vitae in more cosmopolitan climates) is a useful tool for employers because it acts as a sort of excuse for them to hire you. Any employer would be lucky to have you (especially considering the state of your fellow candidates) but in order to prove that an employer’s deep-felt desire to see you every day for the foreseeable future isn’t just a passing fancy, you need to give them something that proves rationally how special you are.

As such, the most important part of a resume is the work experience section. This is where you are able to give receipts on who your previous employers have been, their standing relative to a prospective employer, and some of the tasks and responsibilities that you happily took on out of gratitude for their benevolence. Here are some things you should remember when you’re presenting your work experience:

Make Sure There Are No Gaps In Your Work History!

There’s no greater red flag to an employer than seeing a period of time in which you were not somebody’s employee. For many employers the fact that they themselves are someone’s employee within the great chain of being is the only thing that keeps them from enacting their most twisted and perverse fantasies. Leaving a gap in your resume is an invitation for the employer to substitute in products of their own wicked imagining, and suffice it to say, their minds are dark and vast like the gaseous seas of Jupiter.

It’s Not A Lie If You Have To Do It!

We've All done things we aren't proud of. confession is for the guilty, we only did what we had to do.

Honesty, as you may have heard, is the best policy. However, in this financial climate, trickery and illusion are the only policies most people can realistically afford. Don’t beat yourself up about it. Just remember that in business, love, and the repayment of high-interest consumer debt: everybody makes a compromise eventually. What the creatures of the earth do when backed into a corner can hardly be called indicative of their character. Take a mulligan, and make something up that’s untraceable. Say you were conducting covert military operations securing South American water rights for Nestle, or that you were put on paid leave by Raytheon after you read too much in that blood-soaked ledger.

Your Presence Is A Present!

Make sure when listing a previous work experience that you indicate a concrete way in which you improved the work environment. Whether you always made sure to arrive at work with a smile on your face and a song in your heart, or you petitioned to have break times shortened to combat indolence, employers love to hear about someone that makes the business of working a pleasure. We’ll cover this more in-depth in our next chapter when we discuss references.

It’s Not Just A Position, It’s A Title!

Framing is everything. A common mistake on resumes is to downplay the importance of your role in previous jobs. Try these helpful substitutions to give your resume that knockout punch!

You Can Help, And I Can Help You Help

There is a reason skyscrapers extend upward; hell, below, is full.

Now that you've punched up your resume to ensure you're telling the most desirable version of your personal story, you're ready to start handing it out anywhere you see an opportunity to help. Keep an eye out for Help Wanted signs! Counter-intuitively, these signs frequently mean there's an employer on site who can help YOU! Some job searchers make the mistake of ignoring these signs, selfishly thinking that because they themselves need help that surely they cannot offer help to anyone else.

The secret, rarely discussed beauty of employment is this: letting yourself help an employer is actually letting an employer help you! You need direction, purpose and a reliable means of acquiring food, and they need someone from whom they can extract labour to ultimately increase the personal wealth of their own respective employers! Employer and employee form a great and beautiful chain of being employed. It is a beautiful ouroboros; a glistening sixty-nine of beneficence. To partake in it is to know peace, to be without it is to know hell is cold and close. In any case, this natural order is something we'll discuss at greater length in our next chapter: "On Whose Authority?"